The field of the present invention is that of telecommunications networks known as “multibroadcast” networks in which a source is able to broadcast data to a plurality of destinations.
In such networks, routers construct a replication tree between the source and the destinations with the result that a data packet passes only once over each link of the network and is replicated by the routers to reach each of the destinations.
This kind of broadcasting technique is known as a “multicast” technique.
Using such a replication tree allows massive broadcasting of information with maximum optimization of the network resources.
In contrast, multicast broadcast networks are known to be inherently unreliable because the data is transported under the UDP protocol, i.e. in non-connected mode.
The document “P2P Multicast Library” available at http://pml.sourceforge.net/Technology/ proposes a method of making a multicast network reliable in which destinations of a broadcast stream are able to recover fragments of the stream that they have not received from peers of a peer-to-peer network.
In that method, a source of the peer-to-peer network sends the various destinations a message including the characteristics of a strategy for broadcasting of the data by that source.
That method has a major drawback in that it is necessary, as is usual in peer-to-peer networks, for the source to know the destinations to which it must send these strategy characteristics.
Furthermore, a method of that kind requires that the sending of the strategy characteristics be secure, for example through the use of an error correction code mechanism or a specific protocol by means of which the destinations may request resending of the strategy characteristics, either of which solutions is liable to cause great congestion in the network if the number of destinations or the frequency of changes of strategy by the source increases.